Study: More drivers drugged than drunk

More California drivers tested positive for drugs, especially marijuana, than for alcohol during a roadside survey that safety officials say points to a serious and growing threat.

One in every seven drivers checked on a weekend night this summer had illegal or prescription drugs that could impair driving in his or her system, according to the survey released this week.

The study comes as the California Highway Patrol prepares for a “maximum enforcement” campaign during the Thanksgiving weekend, in part to target people driving under the influence.

State officials describe drugged driving as an emerging problem that has often gone under-reported and under-recognized. In an attempt to measure the problem, survey-takers waved over hundreds of late-night California motorists over two weekends. They asked to conduct a short interview, record a puff of breath and – in exchange for $20 – take a saliva sample, all of it anonymous. More than 1,300 drivers took them up on the offer.

Fourteen percent of those drivers tested positive for at least one drug. Marijuana turned up in more than half of the positive tests; the rest were split evenly between illegal drugs and prescription or over-the-counter medications that could impair driving.

The marijuana tests looked for an ingredient called THC that dissipates within a few hours, not for other marijuana markers that can linger for weeks and would have skewed the results.

“These results reinforce our belief that driving after consuming potentially impairing drugs is a serious and growing problem,” said Christopher J. Murphy, the director of the state's Office of Traffic Safety.

About 7 percent of the drivers had some measurable level of alcohol on their breath, most well below the legal blood-alcohol limit of .08 percent. Nearly a quarter of those with alcohol in their systems also tested positive for at least one drug.

A few of the drivers arrived at the survey checkpoints too drunk to legally drive. They were held until a sober driver could take over, but they were not arrested or cited, said Chris Cochran, a spokesman for the Office of Traffic Safety.

That office commissioned the $650,000 study by the Maryland-based Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, paid for with federal funds. It initially questioned whether such a voluntary survey would accurately reflect the problem: Would a driver high on cocaine, for example, agree to stop? But Cochran said the participation rate was so high, even among drivers who initially wanted no part of it, that the study's authors determined it was statistically sound.

The survey-takers randomly stopped drivers at nine sites around California, including one in Anaheim. Cochran said the survey did not break down numbers by city or county.

Orange County Sheriff's Department Deputy Wayne Howard has seen the effects of drugged driving in the crashes he investigates for the traffic bureau in Aliso Viejo. The problem, he said, has worsened in recent years, especially with prescription pain and anxiety medications.

“All those drugs, on the bottom, will tell you not to operate heavy machinery and not to drive, but people do anyway,” Howard said. “People think ‘drugs,' they think heroin or meth. It's not. It's prescription drugs.”

The California survey follows a national survey in 2007 that found nearly identical rates of positive drug tests among nighttime drivers.

The state has been trying to put more focus on drugged driving, not just drunken driving. A new law better separates the two crimes when they get to court, which traffic-safety officials hope will make it easier to track drugged driving. The state also has given local prosecutor offices, including the Orange County District Attorney's Office, hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to address drugged-driving cases.

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